Automation will not just kill the high street. It will kill local communities.

Trying to maximise earnings for shareholders killing local communities is bad economics and the beginning of a social experiment that will lead to violence.

From banks, pubs, local supermarkets, et cetera, there is a trend to eliminate humans to replace them with robots. Big companies ignore at their peril that local branches are inextricably linked to the local community that is only possible when there are local jobs.

Why do I still visit a certain area? Because I see a vibrant community. I don't visit a given area to be received by holes in the walls - the image created by shops that are no more and all is left is signs indicating that what used to be an integral part of the area is no more.

The more empty spaces the less the appeal to visit a certain area. Too many parts of London - and not just London - look like areas that have been hit by a tornado. It is reported that looting and shoplifting are going up. Well, rundown areas are a magnet for crime.

To me uncontrolled automation is the way to Hell. I do remember the Encyclical Rerum Novarum about the social importance of work. Robots do not create nor sustain local communities. People employed locally constitute local communities. When jobs disappear locally, communities disappear and entire areas become ghost towns. Haven't we learnt anything?

Why do people leave the areas where they live? The lack of a viable local economy. It has been happening across the United Kingdom. Suddenly, you end up with empty high streets and empty houses rotting away. Local infrastructure is wiped out. No banks, no post offices, no pubs, no schools, no healthcare, no jobs. There is no even a reason to have public transport because the number of those needing to use public transport has fallen dramatically and maintaining public transport is no longer a viable proposition. In far too many areas of Britain, schools are closing down. Why? There are not enough children.

Uncontrolled automation destroys local communities and once people leave a certain area and there is no one to use automation automation itself becomes redundant.

A visit to some local council headquarters is a clear image of what has been going on. Local authorities spent vast amounts of money in technology. In one hall alone there were more than 24 computer terminals, but there are only one or two people dealing with customers. So you have got 21 computers terminals that are seldom or never used.

Self-help kiosks installed in NHS hospitals have in most cases being withdrawn. The investment was made at huge expense. The idle pieces of equipment lie around creating confusion until they are finally removed.

Once again, uncontrolled automation does not solve problems. It creates problems and destroys lives.

    

Military realities: Armies cannot be built overnight and speeches based on thin air are not helpful

 

This morning the Conservative Party looks smaller in Parliament having lost two by-elections created by sheer stupidity of two now former Conservative MPs who engaged in activities that led to the conviction of one of them for criminal sexual behaviour and another for impropriety having been forced to accept the fact that he had been watching pornographic videos inside the House of Commons. Not a very uplifting behaviour and nothing to be proud of.

But something else is looking pretty small and this is something to be a lot more concerned about. The size of the British Armed Forces is smaller than the Russian deployments in Ukraine while those in power are engaged in warmongering activities that increase the risk of a major incident triggering yet another European-wide war. As Chinese preparations continue apace, those in charge in the United Kingdom seems oblivious to the fact that there is an obvious issue concerning numbers. It is a bit like the case of a mouse trying to bite an elephant. If the plan is to go to war on Continental Europe or in Asia, Britain has lost the war before the war has even started. The Foreign Secretary seems to live in her own fantasy world and the Defense Secretary is pushing forward plans that will make British Forces even smaller. Britain will end up fighting using toothpicks.

With a total population of about 65 million people, British Armed Forces are remarkably small, so small that they could only play second fiddle in Afghanistan and in Iraq. The Defense Secretary Ben Wallace MP had some troubles trying to explain in the House of Commons what had actually happened in Afghanistan and the apalling details of the withdrawal from Afghanistan. As it was explained to me, the issue when it comes to recruitment is not lack of potential recruits. Unhealthy habits lead to lack of the minimal requirements in terms of physical and mental fitness required to join the forces. In an attempt to boost the number of recruits able to pass fitness test, the decision was taken to open the field and accept recruits coming from the Commonwealth. As this did not work either, my educated guess is that plans drawn by Ben Wallace MP that include smaller conventional numbers is simply a reflection of what is happening in terms of recruitment. Too many people in Britain are not fit for purpose.

But there is more. On top of the fact that research indicates that in Britain about one in ten teenagers go on to suffer mental health issues - many cases go undetected - new medical conditions appear. One of them is DLD (Development Language Disorder) and youngsters suffering from DLD have difficulties talking and/or understanding. This is a condition that affects initially children and persists into adulthood. The condition can be missed, misdiagnosed or misinterpreted as poor behaviour, poor listening or inattention. About 7.5 percent of children 4-5 years of age suffer from it. Children's ability to learn is impared. It affect reading or writing and is often linked with dislexia. All in all, this means that a vast number of individuals will never be fit for military service for physical reasons, for mental reasons and for both mental and physical reasons reducing the pool of resources in terms military manpower. We are talking about millions of individuals in the UK that face a very uncertain future and the real possibility of not being able to cope by themselves in civilian life let alone military life.

This should also be a reason for concen in terms of National Security when we talk about long term commitments in a theatre of war. 

Britain is ill; Violence is spreading.

Britain is ill; Violence is spreading.

Political reasons are not the only reasons why tensions are rising beyond safe limits. Violent attacks are becoming deadly serious and more vicious. When somebody decides to launch random attacks against individuals he never met before, against whom he has no personal grievances, we cannot expect to be safe wherever we go.

How can you prevent an unwarranted attack for which there is no clear motivation? The plain answer: You cannot. I believe that mental health issues are a major component of violent attacks in the United Kingdom. It is estimated following major research that one in ten teenagers suffer from some form of mental illness. Only a minute number of them are formally diagnosed and an even smaller number are actually treated before they reach a critical point.

Police Forces were recently given a go ahead to carry out more stop and search operations to try and deter people from carrying knives but the one who gets away is the one that commits the crime with lethal consequences.

We can deal with rational individuals that might listen and stop carrying knives. What about those suffering from mental illness? Will they be able to listen? 

Internet is not a threat. It is a safety valve

Internet is not a threat. It is a safety valve.

I strongly believe that Internet is a safety valve that allows to diffuse much of the frustrations that could turn into violence. I believe that in a deeply divided society in which despite rising numbers the individual is paradoxically increasingly isolated, we need the means to allow grievances to be vented safely. For this reason, I reckon that attempts to prevent people from expressing their feelings in social media are misguided and dangerous.

Some years ago, I wrote a piece about Thomas Hamilton, a loner that was a member of a gun club in the United Kingdom. Thomas Hamilton was a ticking bomb, loaded with frustrations and resentment made a lot worse by the fact that he couldn't let go of the anguish that was growing and growing inside. Suddenly, one day, he decided to arm himself and walk into a public school where he shot dead teachers, parents and pupils.

Jo Cox's case is cited as a case of politically motivated assassination when in fact it was a case of a mental health patient that on the eve of the attack was asking the National Health Service for support because in his own words he was feeling emotionally troubled. Thomas Mair was also having mental health problems but the case was completely distorted and made to appear as politically motivated. Thomas Mair was described as a Right Wing Terrorist.

In a society in which one in ten teenagers are showing symptoms of mental health problems that go untreated in most cases, social media play a vital role. Those who do not have a rewarding and fulfilling private life can use the Internet and social media to relieve some of the pressure they are under.

I think some British politicians are getting things extremely wrong. Censoring and banning can only make matters a lot worse. I do believe that putting things under the carpet is not the answer. It is better for things to happen in the open so that we know what people are truly feeling and thinking. You might not like some of the comments people make but this is no justification whatsoever to prevent them from expressing what they truly feel and think.

Britain has a particularly serious problem. Why hasn't anybody asked why so many people are choosing to live alone and why so many that would like to have some kind of social interaction are being ostracised? Let's remember that we live in a country in which not less than 15,000 people take their own lives every year (this is about the cases that we know but there will be plenty more that we don't know about). I guess we only notice the problem when our train services are cancelled because somebody jumped onto the rails in front of a passing train.

Behind the drugs problem, there are fundamental social issues related to how we interact with each other. In the Digital Era of Mass Communications millions of people don't have a voice and feel completely abandoned.

Cannabis = playing Russian Roulette with your mental health

Daily Mail: Cannabis = Russian Roulette with Mental Health

Professor Wyane Hall, drugs advisor to the World Health Organization, highlights the dangers of cannabis.

The conclusion is: cannabis is highly addictive, causes mental health problems and opens the door to hard drugs.

The facts of a twenty year study on the consequences of cannabis us;

• one in six teenagers who regularly smoke the drug become dependent on it
• cannabis doubles the risk of developing psychotic disorders, including schizophrenia
• cannabis users do worse at school. Heave use in adolescence appear to impair intellectual development
• one in ten adults who regularly smoke the drug become dependent on it and those who use it are more likely to go on to use harder drugs
• driving after smoking cannabis doubles the risk a car crash, a risk which increases substantially if the driver has also had a drink
• smoking it while pregnant reduces the baby's birth weight. 
• it is often harder to get people who are dependent on cannabis through withdrawal than for heroin
• those who try to stop taking cannabis often suffer anxiety, insomnia, appetite disturbance and depression
• long term use raises the risk of cancer, bronchitis and heart attack

The issue of cannabis is not about saving Police time as some politicians talk about. The issue of cannabis is a real problem that needs to be tackled as the problem that it is. 

Allowing the free flow of cannabis will make matters worse. Countries that have relaxed legislation concerning cannabis are experiencing a steady increase of the number of people getting into serious difficulties and this is something that affects us all as a society.

Mental illness can also lead to violent behaviour and destroy families. When you are faced with the consequences of drug abuse seeing people close to you going downhill, you know that this is not a laughing matter nor an issue that be glossed up.

The damage done by drub abuse is cumulative. If somebody's capacity to relate to others is affected, if somebody's capacity to think is impaired, if somebody's behaviour becomes erratic to the point that he/she is a danger to himself/herself and to others, including members of his/her own family, we must put pressure on politicians to do what is right instead of doing what they think is 'convenient/modern'.